Given how old he was, Mugabe could've taken the opportunity a few years ago to allow the opposition to share power, instead of neglecting to rig the election, being embarrassed and then violently cracking down on them. Enjoy his final years in luxury (potentially in exile) knowing that at least he'll have a legacy of having reformed at the end would probably be preferable.

But that's not how he chose to go down. So it doesn't sound like a really positive outcome was likely either, as his wife doesn't sound like she'd likely have been a good leader either (although I guess given what Mnangagwa's guilty of in that Bloomberg article, there's a chance she could've been quite a bit better than him).